


Uncommon Inquiries

by breathedout



Category: Killers Kill; Dead Men Die - Annie Leibovitz
Genre: Buddy Cops, F/F, Metafiction, Pastiche, Performative Self-Presentation, Period Typical Homophobia, absurd plot twists, double crosses, femme fatales, lies and the lying liars who tell them, more pairings than advertised, noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I said at La Brea that I wouldn't lie for her, and I didn't. I just… told the truth in the wrong voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncommon Inquiries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kathryne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne/gifts).



> This story took a couple of profoundly unexpected turns, some of which should be pretty immediately obvious; [kathryne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne), I hope it still scratches your itches in re: this particular fandom. (Also THANK YOU for giving me the chance to write in it; I've been wanting to for absolutely ages, and it was great fun.)
> 
> Huge thanks to [greywash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash)/[fizzygins](http://fizzygins.tumblr.com) for a past-the-last-minute beta job! She is, as always, a delight.

[A dive bar after dark, on a deserted corner in the Los Angeles night. Outside, a neon sign flickers into the fog, lighting the flanks of a few black cars, and an old phone booth. Inside the bar the floors are dirty and the customers few. The jukebox plays all the hits of 1945, ten years too late; and bellied up to the bar a few sad sacks in ill-fitting suits stare into their liquor like they don't remember arriving and they've got no plans to leave. In a booth in the back SLOAN slouches, a recently-undercover cop with a ten-o-clock shadow, his suit rumpled and his hat pulled down over his eyes. He tugs his tie loose around his neck, and moves his mouth like it's got a bad taste in it and has for a while.]

[Behind the bar TRUDY, a busty forty-something in capris, dark lipstick, and an off-the-shoulder blouse, pulls pints. MINSKY, a blonde in her early thirties, leans against the bar in a black evening gown with a big cloth flower at the side of the low neck; an old leather jacket is draped over her shoulders, but it does nothing to change the way she sticks out like an orchid in a dandelion field. Her hair was once carefully waved down over her shoulders, but is now, like most things in the bar, worse for wear. She scratches at the skin under her flower while she waits. The drunk next to her at the bar is looking, none too cautiously; when she sees him she stops scratching and puts her hands down on the bar. Close-up on fingers with close-cut nails, fidgeting against the bar and then gesturing toward the glasses in the background.] 

MINSKY: Give me a shot of something to keep it company.

TRUDY: Ain't nothin' to keep company yet. 

[In the silence the camera cuts to TRUDY, who gives her patron a long narrow-eyed look. She reaches above the bar for a bottle, and pours a shot. MINSKY sips it, puts it down on the bar; then picks it up again and downs it in one. TRUDY pours her another with no comment, which MINSKY takes her time with a little better.]

TRUDY: You better go wake up your partner. 

[MINSKY doesn't answer. She doesn't look at TRUDY, and she doesn't look at SLOAN. There's someplace off in the middle distance instead, and she stares it down while TRUDY looks at her, hand still on the bottle.] 

TRUDY: My bar ain't a flophouse. 

[MINSKY breathes in. She hoists her face back on like it's the last bag of post on the mailman's Christmas Eve.]

MINSKY: Yeah, yeah. 

[TRUDY smiles, so little you'd almost miss it. MINSKY carries the beers across the room toward SLOAN's booth. Her stride is long; she keeps kicking the bottom hem of the dress around so it almost trips her. When she gets to the table we can hear SLOAN actually snoring where he sits; she kicks his shin and he grunts awake without moving, then groans.]

MINSKY: The law's a bitch, Cupcake.

SLOAN: Jesus, Minsky.

[He pushes his hat back, glares up at her. She puts the two beers down on the table and slides in across from him.]

MINSKY: The law's a bitch, Sloan.

SLOAN: Yeah. 

[He rubs his face. MINSKY drinks her beer. On the jukebox Perry Como comes on, singing about _Til the End of Time_. SLOAN laughs, then drags his face out from behind his hands so as to introduce it to his drink.]

SLOAN: 'Til the end of time, yeah. That's about right. That's about how long we'll be stuck down at that La Brea fleapit doing God knows… Coupla clowns they make us, goddamn Lydekers and their dirty laundry and their—

MINSKY: Hey.

SLOAN: —scumbag leeches sucking on 'em getting—

MINSKY: Hey. Aren't I supposed to be the one getting all long-faced about the corruption of justice? This ain't what I imagined when I joined the force, I'm supposed to say, and you're supposed to— 

SLOAN: Oh, _I'm_ supposed to—

MINSKY: —punch me on the shoulder, buck up, kid, you'd say, it ain't like that in the city, I've seen a thing or two and lemme tell ya this town is as dirty as they come—

SLOAN: 'S that right?

MINSKY: I just thought, you know. We'd worked out a routine here. 

[SLOAN chuckles, turns it into a cough.]

MINSKY: You've got the hat and everything. Dick with a hat like that, you can't surprise him.

[SLOAN is hiding his laughing behind his hand. He rolls his shoulders, then takes his hat off and points to it.]

SLOAN: What, this old thing?

[SLOAN dusts off the hat, punches it into shape. Puts it down on the table and rolls his shoulders, drinking his beer.]

MINSKY: So, what? Your kid sister get blackmailed or something? Beat up by a back-alley pornographer?

SLOAN, suddenly serious: Jesus.

MINSKY: What? 

SLOAN: I gotta have an assaulted baby sister to think this Slade was a rotten son of a bitch? 

MINSKY: No.

SLOAN: That he deserved what he got? 

MINSKY: I—

SLOAN: Telling people he'd help 'em out and then turning around and selling their secrets? 

MINSKY: No! All right?

SLOAN: Okay then.

[They drink, not looking at each other. Perry Como gives way to Johnny Mercer and MINSKY puts down her near-empty glass and tries to pull her arms through the sleeves of her leather jacket. The big fabric flower at her neckline gets in the way.]

MINSKY: Christ's sake. 

[She tears off the flower, puts it down on the table next to her beer, and pulls her jacket closed. Then she leans back against the back of the bench, closes her eyes and lets out a long breath. With her eyes closed her face smooths out, almost like a mask.]

MINSKY, eyes still closed: You think he deserved what he got?

SLOAN: Good riddance.

MINSKY: Yeah. You say that.

[SLOAN spins his empty beer glass on the table; it wobbles and clacks on the formica. MINSKY sits in silence, eyes closed.]

MINSKY: You'd what? What do you want to do?

SLOAN: I don't know.

MINSKY: Look the other way? 

[SLOAN spins his glass again and MINSKY squints an eye open at him. SLOAN gives a half-shrug, looking down at his long-gone beer.] 

MINSKY: What, let whoever it is get away with murder?

SLOAN: I don't know! Maybe. 

[MINSKY snorts. TRUDY is approaching from behind SLOAN with a highball in each hand.]

SLOAN: You know, guys like that, guys like—

[MINSKY kicks SLOAN's leg and he shuts his mouth.]

TRUDY: Thought you two looked like you could use something a little stronger.

SLOAN, talking over MINSKY: You're not wrong.

MINSKY, talking over SLOAN: You got something a lot stronger?

[TRUDY's laugh is as generous as her whisky pours. She plops two of the latter down in front of the cops: rocks for MINSKY, neat for SLOAN. No sooner do they hit the table than both drinks are in hand.]

TRUDY: You want a sandwich, anything?

SLOAN: Kitchen's closed, isn't it?

TRUDY: Yeah. But.

SLOAN: Ham and rye? 

TRUDY: You thrill me, Artie Sloan. 

[MINSKY snorts, and kicks her partner's shin again for good measure.]

SLOAN: Hey, watch it with those lady shoes.

TRUDY, smiling, hands on hips: You want your usual too?

MINSKY: Thanks. 

[TRUDY turns back to the bar. MINSKY looks at her drink, which has mysteriously halved itself while she wasn't paying attention.]

MINSKY: And another of these?

TRUDY, without turning around: Your funeral, kid.

MINSKY, to SLOAN: Guys like that?

[SLOAN shakes his head; MINSKY sips her whisky. He seems to have dropped his earlier train of thought, and she doesn't pick it up for him: just looks at him until he breaks eye contact. He rubs his neck, like he's getting a sunburn from all that neon.]

MINSKY: Talk it out?

SLOAN: Yeah. Okay.

MINSKY: What've we got? We've got—

SLOAN, rummaging next to him on the bench: Rich people oughta just hire their own police.

[SLOAN pulls a manila envelope out from the coat on the bench, and from that pulls out some glossies. MINSKY ignores his wishful thinking like she spends all day doing that, which she probably does. ]

MINSKY: What've we got? You always say afterward it helped: go over it again. 

SLOAN: Go over it again, go over it again. 

MINSKY: Chop chop.

SLOAN, giving her a dirty look: What've we got: we've got Lydekers coming out our ears, and that Slade bastard had dirt on most of 'em. 

[SLOAN slaps a photo down on the formica.]

SLOAN: Debutante Laura, currently out on bail after being found holding a smoking gun on a dead man, and somehow my least favorite suspect despite being captured right here on film. Apart from her we've got the sister Rebecca Lydeker, this generation's brains behind the family citrus fortune, and modestly wild, though she seems to keep it in check. And then—

[SLOAN slaps down another glossy.]

MINSKY: Playboy brother James Lydeker, not good for much but a day at the races; subject of all kinds of rumors and handcuffed to none; and the aunt, Tilda Lydeker—

SLOAN: Yeah, glamorous auntie Tilda. A little past her gold-digging days, which apparently spanned most of the Depression though she never really needed the loot. And the other aunt, the, uh—Alma the-Lydeker-bastard—

MINSKY: Alleged.

SLOAN: —the- _alleged_ -Lydeker-bastard Ramirez, thank you, Little Miss Police Academy, also _alleged_ to be slow on the uptake, but I will admit I have never had the pleasure, myself; and very much confirmed to be constantly under the wing of big sister Tilda, nothing alleged about that.

[MINSKY twitches another photograph out from his stack, and slaps it down on the table herself.]

MINSKY: And Cousin Ethel née Lydeker— 

SLOAN: Yeah, right, the cousin. Who rumor has it hasn't been happy since she married out of the family. And she's been around the Hotel La Brea.

MINSKY: Not to mention Slade was on the extreme wrong side of, at my last count, three different lowlifes we know of: that'd be the club-runner Cuban, the bookie Queenpin, and Magic Pete Johnson, getter of any illicit somethings you want gotten. 

SLOAN: Plus there're all the swells Slade was squeezing who weren't Lydekers. Christ only knows about them. Then you've got this—this twin sister of Slade's, and they say _that_ runs in families—

[MINSKY laughs.]

SLOAN: What?

MINSKY: Nothing.

SLOAN: I did time on the Vice Squad. 

MINSKY: Oh, you did time on the Vice Squad. 

SLOAN: Outrages against public decency—

MINSKY: You—my _granny_ was brought up on public indecency.

SLOAN, distracted: I—Lucja was?

[MINSKY snorts. She pats in the pockets of the leather jacket. On the half-empty pack of cigarettes she finds there she does a practiced routine: shakes out two, puts them both in her mouth, and leans forward over the table—by which time SLOAN has his lighter out. She gets both cigarettes going, sparks glowing in the murk of the booth, then passes one to SLOAN and sits back, nodding.]

MINSKY: Overdid it on the schnapps at the Wolaks' Christmas party. 

SLOAN: That wouldn't get her picked up for—

MINSKY: Yeah, well. She's got a, uh, vivid imagination when she's on the sauce, my granny. Ran down Temple Street yelling about Fascist spies. Started taking her dress off.

SLOAN: You're pullin' my leg.

MINSKY: Checking for bugs. Beat cop picked her up and brought her in.

SLOAN, laughing: Lucja Bajorek, I'll be damned. I'll bring her a bottle the next time she takes pity on a poor bachelor and—

MINSKY: Divorcé.

SLOAN: What?

MINSKY: You're a divorcé, not a bachelor.

SLOAN: Yeah I noticed.

MINSKY: Trust me, you'd be invited over a lot more.

SLOAN: Ah. And you'd be tricked out in pearls when I showed up?

MINSKY: Something like that. 

SLOAN: Hm. Better not, then. My poor heart couldn't handle a world gone that topsy-turvy.

[MINSKY's so-called lady shoe connects again with SLOAN'S shins under the table.]

SLOAN: Hey!

MINSKY, laughing: I'll have you know I'm doing all right in this getup, you no-good rat bastard—

[SLOAN chuckles; slides his legs out of kicking range. They smoke through the aftershocks of their laughter as on the jukebox Old Blue Eyes tells them they'll never walk alone, never walk alone, not alone.]

MINSKY: She slept it off down at the station, that night. Ludwik showed up to drive her home and—

SLOAN: Ludwik? Not you?

MINSKY: I was just a kid. Anyway they let her off with a warning. Just like they did with the Slade girl.

SLOAN: Come on, this isn't—isn't getting a little merry on the Pavloks'—

MINSKY: Wolaks'.

SLOAN: —Christmas schnapps. 

MINSKY: You don't know that.

[SLOAN doesn't answer.]

MINSKY: Do you? 

[SLOAN looks down at his hand as he ashes his cigarette into the molded-plastic tray.]

MINSKY: Look Cupcake, did Archer tell you something, something about her interrogation? Did he cut me out of it, I swear—

SLOAN: No! He said nothing, it was just… the way he said it.

[They smoke, looking at each other with the bottom fallen out of their laughter. MINSKY takes a drag.]

MINSKY: Yeah.

SLOAN: All I'm saying is, that Slade broad's a piece of work.

MINSKY: I'm not saying you're wrong.

SLOAN: And situations, families like that. You never know what else they're hiding. 

MINSKY, stubbing out her cigarette: No. You never do.

[SLOAN takes a last drag off his cigarette before stubbing it out in the tray. He groans. The slouch comes back to his shoulders and he rubs his fingers into the hollows of his face.]

SLOAN: All right. So where would _you_ start on the list of secrets? Huh?

[MINSKY leans back. She looks at him, slit-eyed, fingers drumming on formica. SLOAN waits.]

MINSKY: What about the sister? Rebecca?

SLOAN: Yeah? You like her?

MINSKY: She's got the most to lose, doesn't she?

SLOAN: They've all got plenty to lose, they own half the citrus groves in California.

MINSKY: Yeah, but for Rebecca it's… 

[She huffs a breath, squeezing her eyes shut and then open. SLOAN sits back in his booth and gives her the go-on gesture with his hand.] 

MINSKY, slow: She measures herself by her life up there. Not just the big house in the hills, and the—the softness of it all, the velvet upholstery and the chinchilla wraps and the parties with the fizzy wine, but the way she's got people kowtowing to her. The way folks've got to do what she says and they've got to like it, and she's got herself convinced she knows how to keep it going. Plenty of types like that down at the station, Morris and—

SLOAN: Gardiner.

[Their mouths go sour in the same instant; then they catch each other in the grimace and snicker.]

MINSKY: —and Gardiner. They like to think they're the big fish and they like to—like to think if they can just prove it, they'll be happy. Like one more proof and they'll feel safe. 

SLOAN, nodding slowly: But once you prove it you've got to prove it again.

MINSKY: And Slade was just the kind of man a woman like Rebecca would like to prove it on. Cheap and ugly and he'd come threaten her and she would just…

[MINSKY gestures like a gun, like an explosion. SLOAN gets his cigarette pack out of his pocket, taps one out and lights it. He nods, slowly.]

SLOAN: I was thinking you'd go with James the loafer brother. Gambling debts, or—

MINSKY, shaking her head: Too well planned. 

SLOAN: I like the sister better, anyhow. This was a power play, wasn't it, drugging him and mugging him and driving him down to the docks in a rainstorm. Someone wanted to prove a point, or—or cover something up, or distract us—

MINSKY, sitting forward: And that's, you know that's just what's eating me about this setup with golden girl Laura, standing there with the gun in her hand. 

[SLOAN is nodding faster, forgetting to smoke.]

MINSKY: Of the whole family, she's just—she's a baby. A pretty baby but she's never given it a thought, what it'd be like to live any different.

SLOAN: Thinks it's her due, doesn't she? The universe will provide her with sequins and—and nights on the town and—

MINSKY: Diamonds. They rain out of heaven for her. It just wouldn't occur to her to do a thing like that to Slade; as far as she'd thought it out, if someone took away her auntie or her daddy or her sister, all those things would just—

SLOAN: Find their way to her via someone else. 

MINSKY: I mean. What a goddamn joke. Kid standing there in the rain, in a Dior dress. 

SLOAN: Someone drugged her.

MINSKY: That's what I figure. 

[TRUDY is coming out of the back room with a tray full of plates and glasses. She approaches from behind MINSKY as one of her last two patrons totters to his feet, tossing a few coins on the bar.]

SLOAN: Drove her out there with Slade, a soon to be dead body and a drugged one…

MINSKY: Shot Slade, set Laura up on that street corner with a gun in her hand pointing down at—

TRUDY: That sounds like quite the story.

MINSKY, starting: I didn't hear you.

TRUDY, giving her a look: Should I have cleared my throat comin' up?

MINSKY: Of course not.

TRUDY: Ham on rye, tuna melt. I must have a real weakness for you two, I'd already cleaned the skillet. 

[TRUDY slings the plates down on the table, and follows them with tumblers. SLOAN and MINSKY descend on the food like chained dogs tossed raw meat.]

TRUDY: They make you get all dolled up and then not even feed you out there, wherever you've been?

[MINSKY makes a noise with her mouth full that could mean anything or nothing.]

TRUDY: Yeah, I can tell you're doing great. And look at him, he's a wreck.

SLOAN: Hey!

TRUDY: People are gonna think you don't take care of him, you know.

MINSKY, still around a mouth of food: Take care of who? Him?

TRUDY: You could make sure he gets a square meal now and then.

MINSKY: I bring him here, don't I?

TRUDY: Yeah, but something home-cooked.

SLOAN: Yours ain't home-cooked?

MINSKY: You want me to clean up your kitchen, Sloan?

SLOAN: Be the last time you ever set foot in my apartment.

MINSKY: I could press your shirts.

SLOAN, brandishing a finger: Don't you dare, you—

TRUDY, laughing grudgingly: All right, if he don't want a woman's touch…

SLOAN: She's not a dame, she's a menace!

MINSKY: Hey now. Look at me, I'm a class act, I could press a shirt-collar.

SLOAN: You ever see how many iron burns she's got on _her_ trousers? 

TRUDY: I don't know about _burns_ exactly. 

SLOAN: They're gonna kick her off the force for it someday.

TRUDY: There might be some spots that're a little shiny…

MINSKY: There's no back on this getup, I'll have you know. I'm more lady than this place has ever seen. 

SLOAN, laughing around a mouthful: Ooooooooooh!

TRUDY: Too rich for my blood. 

MINSKY, taking another bite: What do you want ladies around for anyway? Get outta here. 

TRUDY: Not much chance of that. [To SLOAN] You know where to find me if her highness wants another drink, sugar.

[TRUDY saunters on back behind the bar and the other two make short work of their sandwiches as on the jukebox the Andrews Sisters sing about a rum and a Coca-Cola. MINSKY finishes first and sags against the back of the booth. She groans, and lets her eyes close.]

MINSKY, vaguely: Hell. 

SLOAN: Yeah? What about it?

MINSKY: I feel like it.

SLOAN: Rumor is I look like it, so we're even.

[MINSKY pulls her old jacket tighter around her. She pats the pockets like she might get out a cigarette, but instead just gazes out at the fog halo around the streetlamp and the neon glow from the sign above the bar. SLOAN finishes up his sandwich and pushes his plate away.]

SLOAN: She'd do that to her own sister, you think?

[MINSKY tenses. She looks around at SLOAN but doesn't answer him.]

SLOAN: Rebecca Lydeker. You think she'd set up her own sister?

MINSKY: Oh. [She pulls her drink toward her, and sips it.] I don't know. Maybe not. 

SLOAN: She hasn't been nosing around the Hotel La Brea, either. Not like the Slade girl. 

MINSKY: You've really got it in for her.

[SLOAN shrugs.]

MINSKY: And her brother.

SLOAN: I guess I just don't like people who betray a trust.

MINSKY: Mmmhm. 

SLOAN: What does that mean?

MINSKY: I think she reminds you of Sharon. She and Oscar remind you of your wife—

SLOAN: Ex-wife. 

MINSKY: —and her… brother. 

[SLOAN curls his shoulders, and throws back half his drink in one shot.]

MINSKY: Forget about it.

SLOAN: I'm just saying. 

MINSKY: Yeah.

SLOAN: Maybe we ain't looking for a Lydeker at all.

[MINSKY chews on her mouth a little, looking at SLOAN, while SLOAN looks down at his mostly-empty drink.]

MINSKY: Tilda Lydeker was down at La Brea yesterday when Magic Pete showed up.

[SLADE sucks the whisky off his teeth, shaking his head.]

SLADE: Wish I could've run him down in that alley. 

MINSKY: Jesus, Slade.

SLADE: Five years ago I could've.

MINSKY: You've got to stop this. Even you've got to sleep sometime and we're both running on two hours a night for weeks.

SLADE: If I just hadn't kicked that woodblock in the alley. A few more feet on him before he heard me and we might've got something. Big guy like that, it's shameful. 

MINSKY: This isn't about you—getting older, or getting—

SLADE: He was putting something in his pocket, wasn't he. When we came up behind him in that hallway in the hotel, we saw him turn and he was… it was papers, or—or a little book, or…

[SLADE rubs hard at his face, then slams his hand on the table and throws back the rest of his drink. MINSKY sips hers, scowling at her partner.]

SLADE: Trudy! Another of the same!

TRUDY, from the back: Always keeping 'em guessing!

SLADE: So surprise this one with the house special! I know what I like.

MINSKY: We were interrupted yesterday. After you told me about Pete.

SLADE: What? Oh. Yeah, I guess we were.

[SLADE takes out another cigarette, and lights it. MINSKY takes a belt of her drink as the jukebox plays Peggy Lee singing kiss me once and kiss me twice and kiss me once again it's been a long, long time.]

SLADE: Well? You crack the case wide open while I was staggering after Magic Pete like somebody's grandfather?

MINSKY: I talked to Tilda Lydeker.

SLADE: Yeah?

MINSKY: Well. She talked to me. 

SLADE: And what did the heartbreaker of Los Angeles circa '28 have to say to a bright young thing like you?

MINSKY: She likes the sound of her own voice.

SLOAN: The sound of it saying what, exactly?

[MINSKY takes out her cigarette packet and starts over with the double-lighting routine; then looks up and sees that SLOAN is already smoking. She slides one cigarette back in, and lights the other.]

MINSKY: Usual nosy family member stuff. How was the investigation going, who were our top suspects, did we have any leads—

[SLOAN snorts.]

MINSKY: Of course I didn't tell her anything.

SLOAN: Sounds like a short conversation.

MINSKY: You haven't met Tilda.

SLOAN: Is that how she charmed 'em all, back in the day?

MINSKY: Charmed… ?

SLOAN: Half the men in Toluca Lake, back in the '30s. Been married what, six times, and that doesn't start to cover it from what I hear. She sweet-talk 'em and then run out on 'em?

MINSKY: Yeah. That must've been it. 

[MINSKY smokes. SLOAN waits but watching her eyes doesn't make them any less hard or far-away. TRUDY sidles up with their next round: whisky rocks for SLOAN, tequila sunrise for MINSKY.]

MINSKY: The hell is this?

TRUDY: Your fella here said to surprise you.

MINSKY: Yeah?

SLOAN: C'mon, kid, bottoms up.

MINSKY: Aw… 

[MINSKY takes a sip and gags a little. TRUDY laughs and moves to take it back, but MINSKY waves her off.]

MINSKY: I'll drink it, I'll drink it. Just bring me a neat whisky to put it to bed.

TRUDY: That what they call a palate-cleanser?

SLOAN: Oh Minsky here's a real gourmet. 

MINSKY: Yeah, all right, all right.

[MINSKY sips the tequila sunrise, swallows, then makes a gesture toward TRUDY and SLOAN that says 'happy?'. TRUDY slings her hand towel over her shoulder and heads back to the bar, laughing; MINSKY keeps eyeing her drink, like the maraschino cherry on top is about to choke her with malice aforethought.]

SLOAN: You get a word in?

MINSKY: I'm drinking it, aren't I?

SLOAN: With Tilda Lydeker. You have words with her?

MINSKY: Well I didn't sing her a song. 

[SLOAN's eyebrows go up and MINSKY rubs her face.]

MINSKY: Sorry. Sorry, no, I—I asked her what she was hanging around for, obviously. Gave me some runaround about having been given the address by a friend, and the friend never showed. Her driver came up real convenient to spirit her away before I could get anything useful out of her. 

SLOAN: You didn't believe her.

MINSKY: Not a word.

SLOAN: So what do you think it was about?

MINSKY: I think—I think someone gave her that address, sure enough. But they weren't a friend, and they weren't a no-show, either.

SLOAN: You think she was there to see the hotel owner? Or… the Slade broad? The Slade broad was there that day.

[MINSKY toys with her cigarette pack, tearing the paper down at the corner like the solution to the puzzle might be written on its underside.]

MINSKY: Or—Magic Pete.

SLOAN: Nah. Swells have their own set of people to set up their phony passports and marriage licenses. They get 'em along with their, what, Swiss bank accounts, and the doctors who do housecalls to take care of their little indiscretions.

MINSKY: That's not always how it's done.

SLOAN: Pretty goddamn generally it's how it's done.

[MINSKY clears her throat, keeps toying with her cigarette pack. The neon blinks down and on the jukebox Bing Crosby sings _I can't stand fences, don't fence me in_.]

MINSKY: Could be those are the family people.

SLOAN: You mean—

MINSKY: Tilda Lydeker had her wild years, didn't she? She went underground, she's got connections with people all over town. 

SLOAN: You think… she was down at La Brea doing something she didn't want the family to know about? Something she wanted to hide from them? Or from just one of them, maybe. Too bad for her half of 'em have been in and out. 

[MINSKY snorts down at her half-mauled cigarette pack.]

MINSKY: Or she could have been… could be she wasn't hiding it from the family.

SLOAN: No?

MINSKY: Could be she didn't want whatever she was doing traced back to them. Through the—the family people.

SLOAN: Yeah… Could be she was protecting one of them. Could be. Could've told whoever it is to stay away while she sorted out the dirty details. Rebecca, or—

MINSKY: There doesn't…

SLOAN: What? 

MINSKY: There doesn't seem much love lost between aunt Tilda and the, um. Younger generation of Lydekers.

SLOAN: Looks can be deceiving. 

[In MINSKY's hands both layers of paper tear all down one side of her cigarette pack. Ten or a dozen cigarettes spill out over the table.]

MINSKY: Damn. Damn!

[MINSKY slams the empty remnants of her pack down on the formica. SLOAN, giving her a look under his brows, gathers up the cigarettes without comment, sliding each one carefully into his own half-empty pack.]

MINSKY, quieter: Damn.

SLOAN: Think everything's salvageable except this one. 

MINSKY: To hell with it.

SLOAN: You want to call it a night?

MINSKY: I want another drink. Trudy!

[TRUDY, who was already coming up from behind MINSKY, arrives at the table with a neat whisky.]

MINSKY: Just the woman I wanted to see.

TRUDY: I've heard that one before.

[MINSKY bolts the rest of her tequila sunrise and half of the whisky too, as soon as TRUDY puts it on the table.]

TRUDY: You got a bet goin'?

MINSKY: I got a shit theory and Sloan here's got an even shittier one. 

SLOAN: Hey now.

MINSKY: Oh face it, Sunshine, we haven't got a clue.

SLOAN: I thought we—

MINSKY: My fella here says one more for the road.

TRUDY: Yeah, your fella's the one who'll have to work with you tomorrow.

MINSKY: Come on, come on. We've earned it. 

SLOAN: Hey, whatever you want, sister, don't pin it on me. 

[TRUDY turns again to the bar with her lips pursed in a silent whistle. SLOAN is sitting back in his seat, sipping his whisky and watching MINSKY down the rest of hers.]

SLOAN: I thought you might be onto something.

MINSKY: Please.

SLOAN: What? Rebecca? Tilda? Not impossible. 

MINSKY: Not impossible? Not impossible! I mean if we're talking not impossible here's a theory: Cousin Ethel was having an affair with Magic Pete.

SLOAN: An af—what?

MINSKY: Or—no. No, an affair with—might as well be her pool boy. Might as well be, ah—might as well be the Lydekers' pool boy! A fantasy of being back in the family, a—

SLOAN, laughing: Yeah? 

MINSKY: You said it yourself, she hasn't been happy since she married out of that clan.

SLOAN: So what? 

MINSKY: So: Slade finds out, doesn't he? And he's blackmailing her about it, and if the Lydekers got wind of that they'd…

SLOAN: Laugh? What do they care?

MINSKY: They'd…

SLOAN: And why would Cousin Ethel want to frame little Laura? Especially if she wanted the Lydekers to look the other way.

MINSKY: Okay, not Ethel, not Ethel, what about…

[Behind the bar TRUDY is fixing two whiskies, one neat, one rocks, and heading back toward the booth as the last customer other than MINSKY and SLOAN tosses some coins on the bar and shrugs on a jacket on his way out. The little bell jingles over the door and Les Brown sings how his dreams are getting better all the time. MINSKY slaps the table; SLOAN hides a laugh behind his hand.]

MINSKY: Laura Lydeker.

SLOAN: Yeah?

[TRUDY approaches with the drinks, a tired smirk on her face.]

MINSKY: No, wait: Laura Lydeker—

TRUDY: Closing round, kids. 

SLOAN: Hey now, you could be interfering with justice here. Detective Bajorek's about to crack our case wide open.

TRUDY: That so.

MINSKY: So give me some quiet, why don't you. 

SLOAN: You heard the woman.

TRUDY: Did indeed. 

MINSKY, looking up at TRUDY: You're laughing at me.

TRUDY: Heaven forbid.

[Someone is openly laughing at her, and that's SLOAN. MINSKY squints up at TRUDY, but TRUDY is poker-faced, looking back. Only when MINSKY huffs and looks away does TRUDY smile.]

TRUDY: I'll be in the back cleaning up. Take your time, you two know the drill.

[TRUDY walks back to the back room. MINSKY watches her over her shoulder, her face still squinty and offended.]

SLOAN: Laura Lydeker?

MINSKY: She doesn't believe I'm cracking the case.

SLOAN: She better hope you're cracking the case.

MINSKY: Trudy?

SLOAN: Laura Lydeker. 

MINSKY, back on track: Laura Lydeker. What if: Laura isn't Rebecca's sister at all? 

SLOAN: What?

MINSKY, with dramatic delivery: What if she's… her daughter?

SLOAN, laughing: Oh brother. 

MINSKY, also starting to laugh: Not impossible! You said 'not impossible' is our new standard. Secret daughters are not impossible. 

SLOAN: I thought the rumor was Laura was Tilda's.

MINSKY: Rebecca's sixteen years older than Laura. Could be her mother.

SLOAN: Okay but: what good does that do us? Rebecca'd be even less likely to set up her daughter than her sister!

MINSKY: _Not_ Rebecca. 

SLOAN: Come again?

MINSKY: What if. What if Rebecca killed Slade over this secret. 

SLOAN: The secret-daughter secret.

MINSKY: And then Laura, she knows who her mother is, doesn't she? And she sets up _herself_!

[SLOAN is laughing too hard for a slick comeback.]

MINSKY: She sets up _herself_ to take the fall, because, because she's just a kid, right? She doesn't understand how bad it's going to be. Fakes this whole amnesia thing—

SLOAN: That's an awful lot of loyalty to a mother who didn't raise her. Who lived in a whole different wing of the house.

[MINSKY sits back in her seat, drinking her drink. The silence goes on just a little too long as she looks at him.]

MINSKY: Not impossible.

SLOAN: I guess not, sister, I guess not. 

MINSKY: Now you do one.

SLOAN: One what?

MINSKY: You do one, a theory, come on.

SLOAN: Oh Jesus.

MINSKY: Come on, Sloan—

SLOAN: All right already, all right, I—well I still think we should be looking at this Slade girl.

MINSKY: Yes, the Slade girl, fine.

SLOAN: Good?

MINSKY: Good, yeah, sure. Maybe Muriel Slade developed a, what do you call it, fixative—

SLOAN: Fixation?

MINSKY: Yeah. Right, fixation, maybe Muriel was fixated on Laura Lydeker, you know, like they're supposed to get. 

SLOAN: You think?

MINSKY, taking a belt of her drink: It's your theory.

SLOAN, laughing: My theory, sure. All right, say she _did_ have a thing for the Lydeker kid. She'd know all about Laura's dirty laundry from her snake of a brother. She'd know he was breathing down the kid's neck; she'd probably make herself out like Laura's protector.

MINSKY: And when Laura turned her down…

SLOAN: Well, she'd just go nuts, wouldn't she.

MINSKY: You think she'd off her own brother?

SLOAN: Family like that…

MINSKY: And she was hanging around the Hotel La Brea—wait, she was hanging around there waiting for Magic Pete!

SLOAN: Her story would come apart sooner or later. Probably sooner. 

MINSKY: She'd need getaway papers. And in a hurry. For that matter…

SLOAN: Yeah?

MINSKY: Anyone we saw at the hotel could've been after fake papers from Pete. Ethel. Tilda. That—

SLOAN: Tilda.

MINSKY: —redhead in black with the—sure. Tilda, why not.

SLOAN: You figure she's about to leave it all behind? The big house on the hill and the chain of suitors?

MINSKY: Say she and Alma aren't really sisters.

SLOAN, skeptical: Yeah?

MINSKY: You said it yourself, they're supposed to get—to get fixated.

[SLOAN barks out a laugh. MINSKY points a finger at him, trying to make out her face is angry when it's really trying to smile. She waves her finger around like a distraction. SLOAN laughs harder.]

SLOAN: You're saying _Tilda Lydeker_ is—what? Some kinda dyke? Girlfriend to half the men on Toluca Lake? Whore to the rest? 

MINSKY: You said it yourself!

SLOAN: Sorry to disappoint you, sister, but I did no such thing.

MINSKY: It runs in families, you said!

SLOAN, wiping his eyes: Okay. Tell me, what've you—

MINSKY: There's never been any confirmations about Alma being a Lydeker. Only rumor, only speculation. You know it, you looked into it, didn't you, and you couldn't find—

SLOAN: Jack. Yeah, thanks for that, I remember.

MINSKY: And you know who starts most of the rumors on the Lake?

SLOAN: Now _you're_ listening to rumor.

MINSKY: Just a theory.

SLOAN: So your argument is: Tilda Lydeker started a rumor, years ago would have to have been, that Alma Ramirez was her half-sister.

MINSKY: And also that she was slow.

[SLOAN makes a gesture of acknowledgement as he gets out a cigarette and lights it.]

MINSKY: But what if she's not? What if they're… fixated, like you've been saying? What if they're in—in league together, and—

SLOAN: In league together?

MINSKY: —and Slade found out about it and he was blackmailing them?

SLOAN: Of course.

MINSKY: And I don't know, maybe Alma is a bit slow or maybe Tilda just got to the end of her rope but she shot him, she shot him to cover it up and then she had to wait for papers and it would have just killed her—

SLOAN: And why would _Tilda_ frame little Laura? 

MINSKY: I don't know.

SLOAN: Hm?

MINSKY: I don't know, maybe she's always resented her for how easy she's had it, maybe she hated her for all the rumors that Laura was Tilda's daughter when her real daughter was growing up poor, maybe—

SLOAN: Oh, multiple secret daughters we've got, now.

MINSKY: —maybe she thought of the cops closing in on Alma and she couldn't bear it and Laura was just—just gullible enough to drink what she was given and get in a car when it pulled up with the family driver behind the wheel. 

[SLOAN sits back in the booth, smoking at MINSKY, who swallows the last of her drink, clacks the glass on the table, and then looks at SLOAN from under her falling-down Veronica Lake bangs. Her eyes are steady but her poker face doesn't quite hold. In the end SLOAN stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray, and starts to gather up his coat and hat.]

SLOAN: Well kid, I've gotta tell you. I'd put your soused imagination up against your granny's any day.

MINSKY: Now you.

SLOAN: Now I call a cab, you mean.

MINSKY: No, it's your turn!

SLOAN: No, sister, no more theories, I've had a long day. We've both had a long day. 

MINSKY: Lightweight.

[SLOAN stands by the booth. MINSKY inspects her empty glass as the jukebox clicks off and the neon keeps right on blinking. In the sudden silence the buzz of it is audible.]

SLOAN: You be all right? Lucja Bajorek let her granddaughter share cabs with divorcés?

[MINSKY laughs.]

MINSKY: I'll walk. Walk it off. 'S my secret to always being lovely the next morning. 

SLOAN: All right, kid, all right. We can be lovely together, down at the fleapit tomorrow at ten.

[MINSKY nods. SLOAN raps his knuckles once on the table, then shrugs on his coat en route to the door. He opens it; he shuts it. The little bell tinkles and the neon keeps blinking: buzz, click. Buzz, click.]

[For a few seconds after SLOAN leaves the camera stays on MINSKY: just sitting back against the booth, looking at her drink. She slowly straightens her shoulders. Buzz, click. Buzz, click. TRUDY comes out from the back room, drying her hands on a towel, and locks the door behind SLOAN. She looks sideways at MINSKY, who doesn't react. TRUDY walks over to the jukebox; fiddles with some knobs. In a minute "Gotta be This or That" comes on, and MINSKY, surprisingly coordinated, starts laughing exhaustedly into her glass, then starts rubbing her face. TRUDY sashays over to the booth, takes the glass out of MINSKY's hand, and pulls her to her feet. MINSKY goes with the limpness of exhaustion rather than drunkenness. She lays her head on TRUDY's shoulder and they dance in a tired but well-accustomed way, bodies pressed together, swaying incongruously slowly to the upbeat tune. As the song ends TRUDY twirls MINSKY out from her body gently. MINSKY goes, but returns as soon as possible to press herself back against TRUDY's front in the sudden quiet of the bar.]

MINSKY: God, Tru.

[TRUDY pets MINSKY's hair.]

TRUDY: You give up your mom?

MINSKY: No. 

[TRUDY holds her and they sway.]

MINSKY: I meant to, I tried to, I just. 

TRUDY: Yeah.

MINSKY: When it came down to it I couldn't. I couldn't give up Alma like that, I kept thinking of her alone in some foreign place, not knowing anyone, and the woman she loved…

TRUDY: I know.

MINSKY: I really _like_ that bastard, I… If he'd read between the lines a little more. 

TRUDY: It's all right, kid.

[The needle lifts up off the record and the bar, again, is silent. TRUDY and MINSKY keep dancing sleepily, pressed together in the quiet of booze and formica.]

MINSKY: I just hate how I let her wind me up.

TRUDY: You want to stay over here?

MINSKY: Yeah. 

[They keep standing there, swaying gently with MINSKY'S head on TRUDY's shoulder and TRUDY running a hand through MINSKY's hair. MINSKY at last takes a deep breath.]

MINSKY, drawing back: Yeah, I just—there's a call I gotta make, I'll be up in—I'll be up.

TRUDY: Okay. I got most of the closing stuff done, I'll just—

MINSKY: Okay.

[TRUDY turns to the booth, picks up MINSKY's and SLOAN's glasses in one hand, and turns toward the door, yawning behind her other hand. MINSKY is watching her. TRUDY reaches the doorway back into the kitchen, and shuts the lights off.]

MINSKY: Tru?

TRUDY: Yeah.

MINSKY: Thanks, I—thank you.

[TRUDY pauses for a moment, then yawns again.]

TRUDY: I'm a model of selflessness, letting a woman like you in my bed.

[MINSKY snorts.]

MINSKY: I'm one, putting up with your morning breath.

[TRUDY waves a hand over her shoulder before disappearing through the doorway. Her retreating steps are audible. MINSKY stands looking after her for some time, then takes a deep breath and scrubs her hands over her face again. When she moves it's with profound tiredness. She picks up the cloth flower she'd earlier ripped off her dress, pats her pockets for cigarettes, gets one out and lights it, then rummages in her pockets again for a nickel. She un-latches the front door of the bar, lets herself out, shuts it behind her, and slides into the phone booth on the corner. She gives the direction and waits, seeming to listen to it ringing.]

MINSKY: It's me. I'm fine. It's—I'm okay. Yeah. No, don't put put her on, just. 

[MINSKY lets out a long breath.] 

MINSKY: Tell her you two've got a couple of days, all right? Just a—just a couple. Well. I told her at La Brea that I wouldn't lie for her, and I didn't. I just. Told the truth in the wrong voice.

[MINSKY waits, seeming to listen to a voice on the other end of the line as the neon stains her face bright, then dark, then bright.]

MINSKY: Yeah, a couple days at the outside. Okay. Yeah, goodbye. I never called, right? You never talked to me. Good girl.

[MINSKY smiles, biting her lip. Tears are welling up in her eyes but she twists her mouth, kicks gently at the bottom of the phone booth. She relaxes as if the other person has hung up, and then tenses again, as if trying to keep them.]

MINSKY: Alma? 

[MINSKY relaxes again.]

MINSKY: Take care of my mom for me, okay? Yeah. All right. Good luck. Goodbye.

[MINSKY puts the receiver back in its cradle, then leaves the booth, pulling her jacket tighter around her. For a moment she pauses on the sidewalk, and looks up at the stars. Then she runs her hands through her hair and the camera pans back, taking in the sidewalk, the windows, the neon, the roof and the Los Angeles night sky, as MINSKY pushes open the bar door, and walks through.]

**Author's Note:**

> The social-vagrancy-cum-public-indecency laws in California were on the books until 1961, when they were replaced by a "disorderly conduct" law. Interestingly, the earlier laws, which were incredibly far-reaching and empowered the government to punish "any act… which openly outrages public decency" (hence why both drunken granny Lucja and alleged lesbian Muriel Slade could be arrested on the same charge) also hold the distinction of being the only statute law in the United States which ever mentioned the words "fellatio" and "cunnilingus":
>
>> In 1921, the penalty of sodomy was lowered to 1–10 years imprisonment. The same year, a constitutional amendment prohibiting oral sex (namely "the act of copulating the mouth of one person with the sexual organ of another") was passed, retaining the 15-year imprisonment as a penalty without regard to sexual orientation. Finally, a third act gave free rein to the government to prohibit and restrict any sexual activity, stating that "any act...which openly outrages public decency" would be punished.
>> 
>> As a result of these and prior laws, California became notorious for egregious invasions of privacy, with numerous cases of residential espionage by neighbors, family members, rivals or hired private investigators; the majority of these invasions (including the drilling of holes into walls) went unchallenged by defendants in court. ([Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_California))


End file.
